I have spent the last 12 hours contemplating what we have saw on the Country Music Television (CMT) awards, last night. Well, not the whole 12 hours, I slept, and then this morning, my house is being repainted and McDuff the Terrierist has not stopped barking for one second. But, in the rare quiet moments, I thought about why the owners, artists and production company involved with the awards show hate us so much. They hate us in an in-your-face kind of way and they hate us in a mocking way. There is so much to think about. For those whose tastes run more to EDM, here is some background.

Big Media

CMT was born in 1983 in Hendersonville, Tennessee about 20 miles Northeast of Nashville and played pretty decent country music at the start. I remember Marty Stuart, Patty Loveless, and even Tammy Wynette. Through many corporate transactions, Country Music TV is now part of Paramount and the award show airs on CBS, for criminy’s sake. This year, the awards show was held in Austin, Texas instead of Nashville, Tennessee. A date change made a Nashville venue difficult to find so the show moved to Austin, the city whose motto is “Keep Austin Weird”. The Austin Chronicle’s review believes that Country Music Television and Austin pulled off a kick a$$ production:

Broadcast live from Moody Center on CBS, with several prerecorded performances from earlier in the week on Congress Avenue with the Texas Capitol as backdrop, the entire show was an impressively run machine of superstar performances and seamlessly orchestrated prime-time television. The evening not only marked the first time that the entirely fan-voted awards show has been presented outside of CMT’s home city of Nashville, but also served as the first major televised awards ceremony hosted by Austin. Even with major events like Formula One, ACL Fest, and South by Southwest, the question remained throughout the week how well the mainstream country event would fit in the Live Music Capital.
Sunday’s answer: The CMT Awards fully embraced the city, and the fans both on Congress Avenue and inside Moody Center returned the appreciation.

We cannot expect the young folk to know who Mother Maybelle Carter was, but no Willie Nelson? Heaven forfend! I know Austin is big for live music, but I just think the show should be in Nashville with at least a nod to the stars who built the stage.

Drag Queens and Country Music

Local Knoxville girl Kelsea Ballerini opened the show talking about the six killed in Nashville and remembering Central High School student Ryan McDonald killed in 2008. Here are the notes on the opening:

Three adults and three children were confirmed dead following the shooting, which took place at The Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville. The female suspect was killed in an altercation with police.
Speaking directly to camera without an audience, Ballerini said the names of all six victims, who “walked into the Covenant School and didn’t walk out.”

“The community of sorrow over this, and the 130 mass shootings in the US this year alone, stretches from coast to coast,” she said.
“I wanted to personally stand up here and share this moment because on August 21 2008, I watched Ryan McDonald, my 15 year old classmate at Central High School, lose his life to a gun in our cafeteria. Tonight’s broadcast is dedicated to the ever growing list of families, friends, survivors, witnesses, and responders whose lives continue to forever be changed by gun violence.”

I cannot verify the 130 mass shootings in the U.S. this year. I don’t trust statistics if I cannot tease out the numbers. Miss Ballerini then “performed” with four Drag Queens:

6 are dead, 3 children dead, families grieving. A trans-activist shooter with a manifesto gunned down a Nashville Christian school…and DAYS LATER y'all have the audacity to pay tribute to trans-activists and drag queens with a song titled, “If you go down I’m going down too?"

— Scarlett Johnson (@scarlett4kids) April 3, 2023

I have loved Drag Shows in the recent past. I have been a fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race. But, time and place, people. The song “If you go done, I’m going down too” could be understood in several different ways, all unfortunate. The four drag performers added nothing. They didn’t even prance with swag. The Progressives all have their knickers in a knot over Tennessee’s “Anti-Drag” law which is not that, as I have explained before:

Tennessee’s Republican-dominated House on Thursday passed an amended version of S.B. 3, a bill that would ban “adult cabaret performances” in public or anywhere where a minor could view it. The definitions of cabaret performances in the original draft of the bill include “topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest, or similar entertainers, regardless of whether or not performed for consideration.”
The bill makes the first offense a Class A misdemeanor and subsequent offenses a Class E felony, which can carry fines of up to $3,000 and prison sentences of one to six years.

Yes, the bill is on hold for clarity’s sake and that is good. The law is about protecting children not outlawing drag performers, LGB brothers and sisters or transgenders. By the by. Drag, trans and LGB are three very different things. I don’t think Progressives cotton that yet. Kelsea Ballerini would do well to get over herself and understand her people if she wants to have a long career. Just saying.

Even though Willie wasn’t there, I did enjoy the performance by Lainey Wilson of “Heart Like a Truck”:

Something about that performance made me think Tammy would be proud.

Featured Image: Mark Ludwick/Flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons